


Predator and Prey

by reasonablywittyatbest



Series: The Lost Statements [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Original Statement, The Hunt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 07:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18566815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reasonablywittyatbest/pseuds/reasonablywittyatbest
Summary: Statement of Abigail Evans regarding a figure in the distance, original statement given 23rd July, 2013. Audio recording by Jonathon Sims, The Archivist.Statement Begins.





	Predator and Prey

Statement of Abigail Evans regarding a figure in the distance, original statement given 23rd July, 2013. Audio recording by Jonathon Sims, The Archivist.

Statement Begins.

I don’t know how long I have left. Every day it gets closer. It has been hunting me for weeks, months. Every day just that little bit closer. But it didn’t follow me in here; it is not in this building, not in this room. Maybe I will ask you if I can stay here forever. No, I’m not sure I could stand knowing it was waiting just outside the doors ready to pounce on me the second it could. I’m so tired of being hunted. I guess you won’t be able to understand unless I start from the beginning. From when it first started stalking me.

I’m, I’m from America but I’ve ended up here for. For reasons that will be obvious in the end. It was around the end of May, I think, when I first saw it. I was waiting outside my apartment for Jim, James Brown, we carpooled to work in the morning. Public transport in Arizona isn’t quite as good as it is here, and splitting the gas saved us both the money. Anyways, there is a large open space across from my apartment, pastures I think, and as I was waiting something caught my eye, a figure. It was very far away, nearly out of sight in the grass that filled the pasture, just a black shape on the horizon really. I thought that it was probably just who ever owned the horses or maybe even a horse it was hard to tell from that distance really. But I couldn’t shake the feeling it was watching me. I grew more and more uneasy as I waited and the figure didn’t move the entire time. I was so grateful when Jim finally arrived and I was able to get in his car.

I was on edge the entire day after that, jumpy. I felt ridiculous, getting so riled up about what was probably a lazy horse or a maybe even a building I had never noticed before. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching me. And it only got worse when Jim dropped me off at the end of the day. My house faces west, you see, and the setting sun silhouetted a figure on the horizon. And I don’t know how I could tell because from that distance I really shouldn’t have been able to, but it was closer. I knew it was closer. I think I knew already then it was coming for me, but it was far enough away still I could deny it. I rushed inside barely saying goodbye to Jim. I tried to go about my evening as usual, but it was difficult.

It continued like that for weeks; a figure on the horizon getting closer and closer every day. Eventually I had to put newspaper over the front windows to stop myself from staring at it. I even started making excuses to be over at my friend’s places as often as I could be. Every day I was surer I was being targeted but I figured, well it was so far away and it only seemed to be in that field so I had plenty of time to deal with it. Maybe I could move, I didn’t want to find a new apartment I liked mine and the rent was cheap but, if I needed to I would.

But no, that wouldn’t have worked. I had started walking early in the morning on the weekends with a friend of mine; anything to get away from my apartment before the sun came up, even braving the desert heat. We were walking on a path that ran behind her neighborhood. The day had already turned sunny and warm despite the early hour, and even if I still felt watched it was hard to feel frightened on a day like that.

Of course, that’s when I saw it. There, between the trees that lined the path across the hard packed earth covered in cactus and wild bushes. I saw it, and it was not on the horizon any more. And I could finally see the definition in its shape, human but far too jagged to be human. I felt faint; I think I may have cried out, I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. My friend was very concerned but I just passed it off as the heat getting to me. We hurried home after that.

At this point I didn’t know what to do. I won’t lie I panicked, I thought maybe I was possessed or a demonic entity had latched on to me or something. I’m not really a believer but something strange was happening so why not. I went to mediums, I got saged, I bought crystals of protection and purification and nothing I did mattered every day I could see it getting closer and closer and I didn’t know what to do. It got to the point where I would I could see it on the top of the building across from my work staring at me and watching me and savoring my discomfort and I think I started to go a little mad. My coworkers tried to talk to me, but what could I tell them. I lied and said I was just having some family problems.

I did move, in the end. It didn’t help. I saw it across the street from the alley behind my new apartment, when it was finally in the entrance to the alley that’s when I booked my flight here, to London I didn’t want to go anywhere I didn’t speak the language to be honest, and I wanted to put an ocean between me and it. I didn’t even tell anyone at work I was leaving I just booked a flight same day and left. I don’t have any pets and all the plants I try to take care of die anyways so it wasn’t difficult to arrange. I saw it on the runway when we were taking off, I should have gotten aisle seat.

I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t, just run away, literally, or run towards it and confront it as it got closer. Flight or fight, right? But I knew if I did that I would be dead, it would have pounced, it wanted me to do that. As long as I went about my life it wouldn’t attack, I could feel it in my bones and I did my best to not react.

It probably won’t surprise you that coming to London didn’t work, I knew right away it hadn’t. I saw it as we landed, as I took a cab to the cheapest hotel I could find on short notice, it was even in one of the windows of the hotel when I got there, staring down at me. When I was drowning my sorrows in the hotel bar I could see it through the warped glass that separated the bar from the lobby. That’s when I found out about you guys, the bar tender told me if I wanted to talk about something creepy I should go to the Magnus Institute, he didn’t want to hear any more of it. That’s fair, I didn’t want to hear any more about it either.

I’ve been here a week now, my money is running out, I don’t even have enough to get home but I don’t think it matters anymore. Yesterday it was in the hall outside my room. When I woke up this morning it was in my hotel room, standing in the corner watching me. Just watching me. Watching me unmoving waiting for me to break, and I nearly did. I nearly ran out of the room screaming, desperate to escape this predator for which I was prey. I didn’t, though I’m not ashamed to say I cried as I dressed. On the tube ride here it was stood in the crowd on the train, no one else saw it of course.

I do not even know how to describe it. I haven’t dared look at it directly since it was close enough that I could see its eyes. But it is sharp, a jagged edge in the world, made for cutting and killing and eating. It may have a human shape but it is not human.

When I left the station it was waiting at the top of the escalators, close enough when I passed it I could feel its breath on my skin. I know it is waiting just outside these doors. I wish I could stay here, I am so very tired of being hunted.

Statement ends.

At first glance it seems like it could be related to several different entities. The feeling of being watched could be the beholder, a thing that is human but not human could be the stranger. But no, I think it’s clear this is an aspect of The Hunt.

Ms Evans did not end up staying in the archives or even asking to, as far as I know. If Martin was here I would ask him… Regardless, Abigail Evans was found dead in her hotel room the day after she gave this statement. Newspaper reports at the time reported that it appeared she had died from some kind of wild animal attack, despite being in a hotel in the middle of London The only way they could identify her was from her passport found in the room. There is not much else to follow up on. Whatever was hunting her finally caught its prey, and unless I start seeing a figure in the distance hunting me I have more important things to be dealing with.


End file.
